The IBM Personal Computer is announced Aug. 12, 1981, with a price of $1,565. According to IBM: “Two decades earlier, an IBM computer often cost as much as $9 million and required an air-conditioned quarter-acre of space and a staff of 60 people to keep it fully loaded with instructions.”

On Aug. 11, 1965, a white patrolman pulls over and arrests a young African American motorist in the South Central Los Angeles Wattsneighborhood. A crowd gathers, a confrontation with police follows and 34 people die in six days of violence.

East German authorities seal the border between East and West Berlin on Aug. 13, 1961, and begin to build the Berlin Wall. The wall remains in place until Nov. 9, 1989.

Later regarded as the birth of arena rock, a concert by the Beatles draws more than 55,000 fans to Shea Stadium in Queens, N.Y., on Aug. 15, 1965. Four years later to the day, Richie Havens kicks off the outdoor Woodstock Music & Art Fair in Bethel, N.Y. By the time Jimi Hendrix closes the festival on Aug. 18, an estimated 400,000 people have come and gone.